One Headlight
by Azurite
Summary: Ranma trying to sort out his myraid of problems sounds like a recipe for trouble, but maybe things are simpler than they seem.


One Headlight

**One Headlight**

**By: Azurite**

**[azurite_moon@yahoo.com][1]**

**[http://www.geocities.com/azurite_moon][2]**

**[http://www.geocities.com/sailor_andromida][3]**

**A Ranma ½ Fanfiction**

**Lyrics by the Wallflowers**

Oh my goodness-gracious! Azurite not doing a Ranma+Akane fic!? **SHOCK!!**

I love this song, and after looking it over, I figured it would make a great #$%% fic. 

Oops, looks like you'll have to _read_ this to find out what it's about. ^.~

I don't own Ranma or any of the characters. I also don't own the Wallflower's song 

"One Headlight". 

Created and heretofore © 09142001, Azurite. 

KEY:

"spoken" 

_thought_

**lyrics**

*emphasis*

** **

It was so long ago, Ranma could barely remember when. He had a hard enough time remembering that night's homework. That was probably why he never did it. But then again, there was also fiancées and rival martial artists to contend with every half-hour. It was a decent enough excuse, considering this *was* Nerima. 

  
**So long ago, I don't remember when  
That's when they say I lost my only friend**

** **

She was here now, so it wasn't as if Ranma had any difficulty imagining her face. But the fact that she was a… a *she* still hung heavily over Ranma Saotome. Not to mention his honor, his future—his very life. 

**  
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease  
As I listened through the cemetery trees**

** **

When she'd first arrived in Nerima, she'd been intent on killing him. Exacting her revenge for a childhood of misery, torment, and pain. She'd become an honorless, sexless child, wandering about with only one purpose—to find and destroy the Saotome honor. 

Then, all it had taken was a half-hearted fight, and he'd discovered that his 'old friend' Ukyou Kuonji was really a girl. Not a boy who he'd played with, teased, fought with, and bugged for okinomiyaki for a whole year out of his life—but a *girl*. Not just any girl, either. A girl who was, officially, his fiancée. 

Ranma hadn't been deaf to her story about giving up her youth to train against the final match against him when she found him. She gave up her girlhood to be the best okinomiyaki chef she could, with or without her precious yattai cart. Gone to a boy's school, and ended up having the affections of a cross dressing… guy. 

Ukyou was still a girl at heart, despite her outward appearance. His official 'cute fiancée'. 

But she'd still lost so much… because of him. 

I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn  
The long broken arm of human law

** **

That had been his mistake, after all. He was never sure if he could stand having her as a permanent enemy, much like Ryoga seemed to treat him. After all, he and Ukyou shared some fond childhood memories—of the times BEFORE Genma Saotome, Ranma's cowardly father, had made the fatal mistake of taking the Kuonji yattai, and leaving Ukyou behind. But she *still* called herself—on a regular basis—his 'cute fiancée'. It only served to anger Shampoo and Kodachi more, and upset Akane in one way or another. Ranma hated, above all, seeing girls cry. It made him look cruel, mean, and honorless. Though sensitivity wasn't exactly prized in 'manly martial artists,' neither was inhumanity and cruelty. 

** **

How could you tell your best friend from so long ago that you didn't love her the way she did for you? That you wanted to stay *friends* and nothing else? Why couldn't things go back to the ease of their childhood days—before the blunders of his father ruined his life? 

** **

Now it always seemed such a waste  
She always had a pretty face

** **

It had been such a waste, he always reminded himself, that she had spent her youth as a boy, in order to regain some honor, and to train for the day she would meet Ranma again. She'd lost most of her girlhood, and those chances for things that, while Ranma didn't fully understand them, were important.There were things that he knew bothered her, but she could never say to him… not even as a friend. That was just the way things were between them. 

** **

Yes, she was cute. But that was all. She wasn't beautiful, and, while a good cook, and a great listener to Ranma's problems, was only a friend. Ranma didn't feel any of those stereotypical "signs of love" around his best friend. And as each day passed, that fact weighed more heavily on him, and his so-called future. 

  
So I wondered how she hung around this place

** **

She wasn't blind, was she? Though Ranma himself had trouble admitting and showing his true feelings for people—especially girls—he thought that Ukyou, as his best friend, was at the very least, aware. If he couldn't be, then she had to. Had to know that he… that he… 

** **

What did it matter, anyway? She was here. Nothing short of destroying her livelihood of okinomiyaki cookery could make her leave, and Ranma wasn't entirely sure he wanted her to. **  
**  
**Hey, come on try a little  
Nothing is forever  
There's got to be something better than   
In the middle**

** **

Ukyou, for her part, was aware. Aware that Ranma needed a little push sometimes in order to admit how he felt about someone, or take action on that feeling. Though she felt guilty about it afterwards, often, those pushes only led Ranma closer to her rival and semi-friend, Akane. 

But me & Cinderella

We put it all together  
We can drive it home  
With one headlight

Ranma and Ukyou were a great team. People admitted that. Nabiki knew that Ukyou was a good source of income when it came to Ranma. Akane knew that even though Ukyou was a potential rival in the fiancée game, she was also Ranma's friend, and to fight her would be to fight him—something that, while she did frequently on her own time, she had no mind to do when he was teamed up against her with Ukyou as well. 

She said it's cold  
It feels like Independence Day  
And I can't break away from this parade

** **

There had been that one period of time when Ukyou had been a very withdrawn and forlorn person. Desperate for his attentions, and at that time, Ranma was sure he was in for it. With his father, and Mr. Saotome, with Team China, and with Akane. How could he ignore his best friend when she needed him… but likewise, how could he deal with Ukyou's persistent need for him and a love he couldn't give?

** **

**But there's got to be an opening  
Somewhere here in front of me  
Through this maze of ugliness and greed  
  
**

When she had a chance, she exploited it. Even if it damaged his fragile relationship with Akane, incurred damages (and fines) with Nabiki, and caused lectures over 'honor' with his hypocrite father. The wedding was the prime example. How could he just 'forgive' her for that? And… on the flip side, how could she ever forgive him for years of lost youth? Were they even on the same scale? 

In a battle for HIM, how could anyone really win? The fights were ugly, and everyone was greedy for one reason or another. Ranma had a shadow of a doubt within him asking how Ukyou could possibly *love* him… after barely knowing him, the current him, from the six-year old who had so foolishly chosen okinomiyaki over his then-best friend. 

And I seen the sun up ahead  
At the county line bridge  
Sayin' all there's good and nothingness is dead  
  


Was there a future ahead where everyone could be happy? Really, truly happy? Where Akane could be safe, and have her dreams fulfilled; where Shampoo could have her honor; where Mousse could have his love and his sight; where Kodachi could… could be sane, and where Ranma could be cured, peaceful, and happy with his mother, with… with who? 

We'll run until she's out of breath  
She ran until there's nothin' left  
She hit the end-it's just her window ledge

What Ranma was most afraid of was not knowing what was ahead at all. That the unknown would slap him silly, and he wouldn't get any part of what he hoped for. That everyone who mattered to him would have their lives ruined—and all because of him. That Ukyou would disappear, or worse, kill herself; all because of a rejection he knew he had to give. How could he lead her on otherwise, and make them both unhappy?

Hey, come on try a little  
Nothing is forever

He could tell her the honest-to-god truth. That nothing was forever—not friendship, not shallow feelings of love. Make her think that was what he believed. Make her hate him again, if just so he could merely *repay* her honor, get another yattai—instead of marrying her. Or tell her that the friendship they had had died a long time ago, and while he was partially at fault, so was she. She'd kept the truth from him for so long about her gender. Did she expect him to know? Maybe innocent youth had dictated things that way. 

There was also the method of saying that she had to get over him—that was the way things worked nowadays. He wasn't that boy she'd known so long ago. 

  
There's got to be something better than   
In the middle

There had to be something better than all that. Couldn't there be a way to keep her friendship? That feeling he treasured of having someone to turn to, to talk to, in those hard times that Ranma experienced all-too-often? Could she be that person, or did he have to rely on himself and his half-assed common sense? 

  
But me & Cinderella  
We put it all together  
We can drive it home  
With one headlight

They could try, together. If it wasn't one-sided, and it was a mutual feeling, it could work. If only he could make her see things his way… 

Well this place is old  
It feels just like a beat up truck  
  


This feeling was old and rotten. He'd turned it over many times in his head, contemplating. Many people thought it wasn't possibly for Ranma Saotome to *think* at all, considering how little common sense he really had. But he was observant, to a point. These thoughts about the future and what to do with Ukyou were old, and depressing. Nerima was old. It was only a place of pain, and hurt. Past, present and future, as far as Ranma could see. But… there was reason to stay. 

I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn  
Well it smells of cheap wine & cigarettes  
This place is always such a mess  
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn

** **

For those very reasons, Ranma knew he would be happy if he never saw Nerima again. There were always the bad things that seemed to horribly outweigh the good. What kind of future could he live, if Nerima *attracted* all number of strange occurrences like a ant to sugar? 

** **

I'm so alone, and I feel just like somebody else  
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same  
  


What irked Ranma was that Ukyou held things over him, in much the same way Nabiki blackmailed him for time, money, or various acts. The past, she insisted. She never mentioned the yattai incident, but the times when they were little. Those 'fond memories' when really looked at, weren't so fond. Had Ranma known she was a girl back then, things today would have been drastically different. He didn't exactly know how, but they would be. He wasn't the same gullible boy of his youth, so why Ukyou kept on mentioning that dead soul was beyond him. 

But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams  
I think her death it must be killin' me

** **

It was the death of that person—boy or girl—that Ukyou *had* been that saddened Ranma. The loss of his friend, and the gaining of another fiancée for his hand in marriage. It was flattering to be wanted by so many girls—or in the case of Akane, not wanted (though he knew she liked him at least a *little*). But what good would it do him? People said his ego was too big, but having these girls fawn over –or fight over,as the case often was– him wasn't doing him any better in that area. 

** **

He was too afraid to talk about how he felt to her anymore, because he knew it would upset her, and he wanted to avoid that. There was no third-party person that had no interest whatsoever in his love life. The Tendos wanted him to marry Akane and get it over with; Shampoo and Cologne wanted Shampoo to marry Ranma, even though he hadn't really 'defeated' her in male form; Ryoga, unsure and lost as ever, was constantly torn between Akane and Akari; Mousse didn't care for Ranma at all, as long as in the end, the blind boy got Shampoo; Ukyou and her honor demanded Ranma marry –or repay– her for the loss of her youth. 

** **

He had too many problems, and at least half of them stemmed back to the fiancées somehow. How could he tell her how he planned to fix it all without tempting her anger, or worse, driving her to depression? 

**Hey, come on try a little  
Nothing is forever**

** **

These thoughts were old. Better left alone. But they would always be there, until he figured out how to work through them. Nothing was forever… there was no time. It was one of those now-or-never instances. By putting it off, it would only increase the heartache. For everyone. 

**  
There's got to be something better than   
In the middle  
  
**

He didn't want to hurt anyone –physically or emotionally– but there had to be consequences. Even after all he'd been through, there was no end to the small depressions, to the fiery rages, or to the broken hearts. They came hand in hand with the happy times, with the lightheadedness, and the rush. 

**But me & Cinderella  
We put it all together  
We can drive it home  
With one headlight**

** **

_Me and Cinderella_… If he was Prince Charming, or Romeo… or even just another guy-next-door jerk, then someone was meant for him. He knew who he felt that was… who he *hoped* that was. But until he fixed things with Ukyou, his best friend… there could be no happiness for him. He had to wait things out. And one day, they would all be happy. 

Ranma—Ukyou, his best friend—and his Cinderella. 

OWARI

Maybe I could have done better, but oh well. 7 pages… not bad for a one-shot. Why is it I can never do one-shot SM fics, but one-shot Ranma and Inu Yasha fics are so easy??? O.o . What did you think? Email me @ [sailor_andromida@yahoo.com][4]

Be sure to visit Animanga Collision @ [http://www.geocities.com/azurite_moon][2]

Or, if you like Sailormoon, then go to [http://www.geocities.com/sailor_andromida][3]

Thanks for your time! ^^ 

All smiles and many mysteries, Azurite

   [1]: mailto:azurite_moon@yahoo.com
   [2]: http://www.geocities.com/azurite_moon
   [3]: http://www.geocities.com/sailor_andromida
   [4]: mailto:sailor_andromida@yahoo.com



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